My name is Karen Springer. I am a 42 year old wife and mother of three children. I am also on the membership roll of my local anglican parish church. I am not a ordained or licenced minister of any church. I am not a Theologian but I have a growing interest. However like most disiples of Jesus I am an ongoing mishmash of new learning but broadly I have a Radical head, a pair of Charismatics arms, an open evangelical body and conservative evangelical legs. I am not a born and bred anglican so I have had little awareness of church politics, at least until recently! So I apologise for not knowing and maybe not understanding the more technical side of these arguments. Also I may seem to be wandering from the subject of Women Bishops but I hope that in my convoluted way I will make a valid point.

When I had my dramatic conversion experience 16 years ago I felt that God had directly involved Himself "in the moment" to make me want to be His forever. I had an overwhelming sense of His Love and His Forgivenesss for me. I had an overwhelming sense of His GRACE. My sense at the time and since then, through my own study of the Bible is that, whilst He is the God of Justice, requiring that we reconsider His Son, The Cross and the Resurrection in the light of our own lives and say sorry, His Grace is super sufficient and boundless.

My whole understanding of my Father is that in the spirit, our saved spirit, we are all equal. As equal as Adam and Eve were in Eden and that through Christ this equality has been restored to believers. Now whilst my saved spirit is equal to any other believer living or dead, my soulish mind is not equal to the minds of others or the Mind of Christ. Likewise my physical body is not yet conformed to Christ. As our spirits are conformed to Christ by means of our acknowledging Him as our saviour so too must our minds (souls) and bodies.

I feel that all churches should, in their organisation, reflect the saved spirit of the believer and not the unconformed mind and body. Our unconformed minds and bodies carry the legacy of our own sins and the Original Sin.This legacy includes our own unresolved issues, i.e. that which we will not open up to the Lord; the consequences of SIN now institutionalised in WORLD SYSTEMS such as economic inequality, racial inequality and gender inequality. So why base a whole church on, in effect the weakness of humankind, as opposed to the strength of our Father as revealed by the life of Jesus. My saved spirit is no less than a man's. So why should my body,and lets be really specific, my female reproductive primary and secondary characteristics bar me from the office of Archbishop let alone Bishop or Priest.

The church should reflect Heaven, the New Jerusalem, not the old orders which are the consequence of Sin. By continuing in the denial of the saved spirit of women because of our minds and our bodies the church says that the power of sin in a sinful world is greater than the redeeming and restorative powers of the Life, Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus. We should all seek to be conformed to Christ and not conformed to the prince of this world.

As an evangelical disciple of Jesus, and a member of a church/Church in which there are members who deny the transforming power of the Cross by my Fathers' Grace and Love - how do I share the gospel with the man in the street. A woman who has given her life to Christ but attends church rarely said to me during a conversation about church, "I know that God is Love regardless of what that lot at the front say" There is lack of integrity in what we teach. Yes you can be saved from God's Judgement once and for all time if you repent of you sin's and accept Jesus as your saviour - but you must refer to yourself as a sinner in the weekly confession. Yes we are all equal before the loving God but in not in a church pew. By that I don't just mean the women's issues - it's not that long ago that Jamaican Christians were turned away from churches in the UK and what about the paternalistic and patronising comments I heard from one anglican missionary who told me that africans need to be set straight on what the true gospel means.This during a conversation about the evils of prosperity teahing. Yes I thought you white missionary from one of the world's wealthiest counties and church which while it is still one the largest landowners has systematically leaked away the money given to it in the name od Christ!

As to ordained women leading churches with declining memberships is this anecdote or is it true? We've had the best part of 2000 years of male only leadership in Christendom and what have we to show for in the West and elsewhere - nominal conversions, conversions at sword point, social status conversions etc. THe British Isles is still at it's core PAGAN. Now I know that isn't the whole story but it goes a long way to explain the moribund and hidebound nature of many church institutions.

Ordained women anglican priests have only been on the scene for 10 years or so, how can they be so responsible for this decline. Moreover, it seeems that liberal anglicanism is in flux at the moment and as liberals have been more accepting of women ordinands it could look like the two are linked, when infact the liberal decline is already gaining momentum for other reasons - like lack of money. If I as an evangelical woman were to train for ordained ministry what are my chances of being accepted as a minister in charge of an evangelical parish? Minimal because of the increasing power of ultra conservatives in our church. Minimal because of PCCs who advertise vacant incumbancies to men only. Not because of some well thought out, well argued and understood conviction held by that congregation, Oh no but because they were unsure as to what would happen if the female vicar got pregnant and required maternity leave. They would have considered an older post menopausal lady vicar but you can't put that in the Church Times vacancies column can you?. As a result the church which did this- a previously open evangelical church which had embraced a maiden lady curate, who held the church through an interregnum- is now held by a keen Reform member. Now with hardline male-headship teachings, predestination, avoidance of the Holy Spirit wherever possible, rigid application of church rules and the castigation of Charismatics, Open Evangelicals and Liberals and other Public Figures from the pulpit this church has become pretty unbearable for many of its members. Yes this has really happened in anglican church known to me.

What has this to do with Women Bishops. Absolutely everything. We can carry on preserving church tradition ahead of GOSPEL TRUTH. In turn we will see the church diminished and out of touch with the GOSPEL TRUTH. All this business of postponing the advent of women bishops smacks of fear of GOD'S GRACE , of self preservation and of PAULINIST HERESY. Let's appoint evangelical women, whether open or charismatic or conservative. Have the courage to let go and step into the unknown - let your faith save you. And if the Church of England divides then maybe it needs to? If it does divide at least I, as evangelical female would then be able to discern which church will accept me and which will not by simply looking at it's notice board or website rather than having to trail around in hope And conservatives could also find their own home. But therein would lie an even greater problem - if we all divorce- and it seems like some parties are considering this, how do we divide our money and property. As with most Christendom issues money and it's control seem to be at the root of the problem. If we haven't got money we can't survive in our current guise. But maybe our current guise should be discarded.